Seen Harder Days

One benefit I'm finding in growing older is the power of painful experiences. Whether of self-induced pain based in mistakes and/or poor judgment or pain delivered from outside sources, there is a reasonable level of spiritual sobriety that comes with hard days. As the late Christian songwriter Rich Mullins sang, in our younger days "we are not as strong, as we think we are."

Alannis Morrisette featured a song on her Jagged Little Pill CD called You Learn which speaks of living life and learning life and the difficulty that comes with accepting hard life lessons. Though not a real fan or frequent listener of her music, I will say as a relatively young songwriter she has apparently lived some "hard times" and is able to transfer those experiences into her music ( lyrics).

Wisdom is typically the product of age, but not necessarily. While growing older is inevitable, growing wiser, isn't. True wisdom is a gift from God (James 3:13-18; James 1:5) but the gift often comes through difficult circumstance. Perhaps this is why James can begin his letter to scattered followers of Jesus with these words... "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds..." (1:3).

I've never been the kind who goes around looking for trouble, though I've created enough of it for myself and others in my lifetime. If I had known then, what I know now, I would have certainly done things differently. Perhaps this is the birth of wisdom, but only the birth.

Wisdom isn't really wisdom until we're facing circumstances that are strangely familiar to those from the past. How we navigate through those current circumstances is the real test of whether we're gaining in wisdom or not. If, by the power of God's Spirit and the informing of our experiences, we navigate safely through the current troubled waters, it is then we can begin to see the fruit wisdom is growing on our tree of life -- but not before.

When we arrive on the other side of trial and tribulation resting secure in the power of God's leading and in the wisdom that comes from heaven above, it is then we can acknowledge we've "seen harder days."